1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing control method capable of saving an amount of use in a hard disk drive, a printing control apparatus for executing this printing control method, and a recording medium for recording a computer program to be used to execute the printing control method by a computer.
2. Description of Related Art
To perform a highspeed printing operation by a printing apparatus, such a printing control system has been proposed that both a process operation for converting image data to be printed (will be referred to as “print data” hereinafter) into a print command, and another process operation for transmitting this print command to the printing apparatus are executed in a parallel manner in separate processes.
In this sort of printing control system, the printing process operation is carried out as follows: First, upon receipt of a print request issued from an application program (AP), a print managing unit issues a print job. Next, a print processing unit receives this print job to produce print data to be printed out. Then, the print processing unit converts this produced print data into a print command having a specific format to a printing apparatus, and also stores this print command into a hard disk drive (HDD) as an intermediate file. The print command saved in the intermediate file is read out by a command transmitting unit, and then the read print command is stored into a SPOOL (Simultaneous Peripheral Operations OnLine) file by a spooler. Then, the print command is properly read out from the SPOOL file by a despooler, and thereafter, is transferred to the printing apparatus.
The above-described print processing operation by the print processing unit is separately carried out with respect to the command transmitting process operation by the command transmitting unit. However, since the processing speed of the command transmitting unit depends upon data transfer speed to the printing apparatus, generally speaking, this processing speed is slower than the processing speed of the print processing unit. To absorb a difference between both these processing speeds, while one print command is transmitted to the printing apparatus, subsequent print commands are stored as an intermediate file into the hard disk drive.
As explained above, in the case of such a printing control system that the print command is stored into the hard disk drive, however, all of the print commands related to one print job are saved until this print job is completed. As a result, the print commands will occupy large numbers of storage areas within the hard disk drive. As a result, when a storage capacity of a hard disk drive is small, there is a risk that these stored print commands may disturb operations of other application programs. Also, in such a printing case that a total amount of print commands to be stored is very large, for example, in the case that a large-sized area is printed out, if there is only small empty storage areas within a hard disk drive, then certain amounts of print commands cannot be stored into the small empty areas of this hard disk drive. Accordingly, there are possibilities that the printing operation is interrupted in a half way.